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Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund, ESL Investments Inc., is interested in scooping up Sears Holdings Corp.’s real estate for $1.8 billion, as well as some other assets, if its offer to buy the company out of bankruptcy as a going concern fails, Sears disclosed in a filing, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. The billionaire’s hedge fund, which had controlled Sears, last week made a $4.4 billion bid to carve out a chunk of Sears stores and keep them open. At the same time two teams of liquidation firms submitted competing bids to liquidate all of Sears and sell off the pieces, according to people familiar with the matter. If ESL’s bid to keep 425 Sears stores open doesn’t succeed, the hedge fund plans to make a $1.8 billion offer for the company’s real estate, according to the filing on Wednesday. Sears and its independent board members have to determine by Friday if ESL’s bid is “qualified” under the sale procedures approved by the bankruptcy court. If the bid passes muster, Sears and its independent board members will then have to determine if the ESL offer is a better outcome for the company and its creditors than either of the offers from liquidators. Read more. 

In related news, credit default swap holders resolved their standoff with one of Sears Holdings Corp.’s largest creditors over an $82.5 million bankruptcy auction that spotlighted potential problems in the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Cyrus Capital Partners LP reached settlements with investors on the opposite side of its soured derivative bets on Sears, ending the legal wrangling between them in the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. The settlements brought a quiet resolution to the latest instance of credit default swaps working in unexpected ways. Holders of these insurance contracts, which were triggered when Sears filed for bankruptcy, had accused Cyrus of orchestrating a market squeeze to salvage a bad bet. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

A hospital is changing hands in northern Mississippi after its previous owner filed for bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported. Gilmore Memorial Hospital in Amory became part of North Mississippi Health Services on Tuesday. The new name is North Mississippi Medical Center Gilmore-Amory. Curae Health sold Gilmore to the Tupelo-based system, finalizing the deal on Friday. Officials previously said that North Mississippi Health Services expected to pay $14.2 million to acquire the land, plant, property and equipment. It was to assume a $3.3 million lease on the medical office building. Read more.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/mississippi/articles/2019-01-02…

Don't miss ABI's “Disruption, Consolidation and Innovation in the Health Care Industry” Program scheduled for January 17 at Georgetown University Law Center, where the discussion will focus on how current challenges facing the health care industry will lead to future opportunities. Register here.
https://www.abi.org/events/disruption-consolidation-and-innovation-in-t…

A federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale of ProCure on Thursday, despite objections by the losing bidder and doctors at the cancer treatment center, NewsOK.com reported. The final details of the sale were not available, but the initial bid by David Raubach's Oklahoma Proton Center LLC included more than $17.3 million in cash to take on the struggling business. ProCure faced financial uncertainty primarily because insurance companies often refused to pay for proton therapy, which is a different type of radiation treatment for cancer patients. Instead of using X-rays that pass through the body, hitting both sick and healthy tissue, ProCure and other proton therapy centers are able to target cancerous masses and limit a person's radiation exposure. Raubach confirmed the judge's ruling on Friday; a final order was not yet available on the court's website. After the sale is closed, Raubach and two partners will manage the Oklahoma City facility. The plan is to keep it open and begin taking new patients in early 2019. Read more. 

Examine how current challenges facing the health care industry will lead to future opportunities. Don't miss ABI's “Disruption, Consolidation and Innovation in the Health Care Industry” Program scheduled for January 17 at Georgetown University Law Center. Register here. 

Sears last shot at survival is a $4.6 billion proposal put forward by its chairman, Eddie Lampert, to buy the company out of bankruptcy through his hedge fund, ESL Investments. Lampert, however, is staring down a deadline of today to submit his offer, CNBC.com reported. As of yesterday, Lampert had neither submitted his bid, nor rounded up financing. Should Lampert submit a bid, Sears' advisors would have until Jan. 4 to decide whether he is a "qualified bidder." Only then could ESL take part in an auction against liquidation bids on Jan. 14. It is possible Lampert, Sears' largest investor, secures financing in time to meet the deadline. The hedge fund manager turned retailer has managed last-minute feats before. Due to requirements by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lampert will be required to make his bid public. That stipulation that could sway him to prolong the filing until its exact deadline of 4:00 p.m. ET today.

Toys “R” Us has closed around 800 stores this year, more than any other U.S. retailer. Many of these closed properties have become hot commodities on the open market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The toy retailer in March moved to liquidate all its U.S. holdings after a failed restructuring. Landlords, discount merchants and other retailers have gobbled up the vacated properties during the last few months. Sales include owned properties and leases, and some tenants have already moved in. Toys “R” Us properties have generated greater demand than other recent retail bankruptcies, like Hhgregg Inc. and Bon-Ton Stores Inc., in part because Toys “R” Us buildings have longer leases with rents considered cheap by today’s standards. “Many Toys ‘R’ Us leases have significant remaining term at rents that are well below market,” said real-estate research firm Green Street Advisors in a recent note. There is also strong demand for the former toy-store properties because their variety of sizes and configurations make them suitable for everything from health-care operators to auto dealers.

iHeartMedia has a succession plan in place to spin off its outdoor advertising business once it emerges from bankruptcy, Billboard reported. The company currently owns 89.1 percent of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, but will fully separate when the restructuring process is complete in the new year. Once iHeartMedia emerges, William Eccleshare will become CEO of CCOH. The London-based executive is currently CEO of Clear Channel International, which he joined in 2009. Scott Wells will continue as CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, reporting to Eccleshare. iHeart filed for Chapter 11 protection in March after being saddled with $20 billion in debt, the legacy of a 2008 leveraged buyout. As part of that filing, the company announced it had reached an agreement to cut that debt in half after a debt-to-equity swap with some shareholders, with an eye towards allowing the company to continue operating and to speed up the bankruptcy process.

A Middleton, Wis., distillery that filed for bankruptcy last month is one step closer to new ownership that would keep the company locally owned, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Travis Hasse and Tom Maas, partners in Dancing Goat Distillery in Cambridge, submitted under the Midwest Custom Bottling name the high bid for Death’s Door Distilling at a bankruptcy auction last week in Madison. The $2.48 million bid submitted on Thursday at the end of a five-hour auction that took 24 rounds and included two other bidding groups, was approved Friday by Judge Catherine Furay in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. A closing will likely be held in early January following the holidays, said Hasse. Hasse, Maas and Maas’ son, Nick Maas, who serves as head distiller at Dancing Goat, opened their nearly $7 million, 21,000-square-foot distillery in December 2017 within the Vineyards at Cambridge. The 73-acre development, located on the village’s west side, includes housing and vineyards while the winery is located in the building that had housed the Matt Kenseth Museum before it moved to the village’s downtown.

FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. won court approval to put an Ohio power plant on the auction block with bids starting at $144 million in cash, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Alan M. Koschik in Akron, Ohio, approved the company’s auction procedures for the 545-megawatt, gas-powered plant located near Lake Erie in West Lorain, Ohio, following a Wednesday hearing. An affiliate of Greenwich, Conn.-based investment firm Starwood Energy Group has agreed to pay $144 million and to serve as the stalking horse, or lead bidder, for FirstEnergy Solutions’ assets. FirstEnergy pegs the total value of the stalking-horse bid at $152 million. Rival bidders will need to offer $157.7 million — $151.7 million in cash plus another $6 million in bid protections — to top Starwood’s initial offer.

A Delaware bankruptcy judge yesterday approved the $87.5 million sale of Open Road Films to Raven Capital Management, Variety Magazine reported. The sale is expected to close on Friday. Judge Laurie Silverstein approved the deal after hearing that various objections had been resolved. Raven Capital submitted the only bid for the company. Open Road declared bankruptcy in September after parent company Tang Media Partners failed to raise fresh capital from its Chinese backers. TMP had acquired the U.S. distributor only a year earlier, and sought to combine it with foreign sales firm IM Global to create a worldwide studio.